


Wrists

by Hyperactive_Avian



Series: I Am Machine [2]
Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Horror, MGM: Monarchs Gone Mad, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyperactive_Avian/pseuds/Hyperactive_Avian
Summary: The Timekeeper repairs his broken body.
Series: I Am Machine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182416
Kudos: 1





	Wrists

He hated them: his hands. They used to be a canvas of his life, covered in scars and marks and callouses. But not anymore. Now they were a mockery of what they once were. He could hear the wind whistling through the joints, grinding metal as sand invaded the false muscle, the delicate mechanisms that mimicked tendons clicking and ticking like clockwork. The cold, normally a reminder of his home, made them shriek and his nerves cry out in pain.   
He wanted them gone. 

Khint wasn’t sure when Jackal realised something was wrong, but he should’ve known the boy would notice. Children like him - those forced to grow up far too quickly - always spotted anything amiss.   
‘Chief, you okay?’ Jackal asked, sounding rather concerned for a thief who showed little to no attachment to anyone.   
‘I’m fine. Why do you ask?’ Khint replied, his back to the boy.   
He was at the peak of the ruins, in a cave that formed a window of sorts to the desert. It functioned poorly as a lookout point - somehow it left those peering out exposed whilst leaving them ignorant to those directly below them - so few came up there. As a result Khint frequented it when he needed some quiet or a place to think.   
Khint heard Jackal shuffling his feet. He imagined the boy would shrug a shoulder in his usual nonchalant way, attempting to disguise his concern as teenage curiosity.   
‘You’ve just. . . been actin’ weird, is all.’ Jackal said, his voice edging towards nervous. Was he expecting to be struck? From the small amount of information he had about the boy’s past, Khint highly suspected he did.   
‘I’m-’ Khint let out a sigh, picking at the base of his wrists, where flesh met metal. He couldn’t let the boy know. It wasn’t his concern. ‘I’m fine, Jackal.’ 

Things settled into a state of normality for a while. The king would give his orders - always with a mad gleam to his eye - and ask about his “adjustments” (he would reply that everything was fine), Jackal would trail behind him like a duckling and also give orders (whilst maintaining a respectful tone to his voice; the last thing he needed was an increase in rates), and Profiteur was. . . strangely absent. Khint didn’t put much thought into it. The merchant was probably off on a business meeting somewhere, thus making his whereabouts none of his business until someone paid him to look into it.   
Then the king gave his craziest order yet: ‘Bring me Praline a la Mode.’   
‘. . . what?’ Was all Khint could say. What was there _to_ say? The king was asking him to kidnap another Duchy official!   
‘She’s very important, you see.’ The king elaborated, mistaking his shock for confusion. ‘Ancheim isn’t thriving like it should ever since the Orthodoxy failed to maintain the winds. So, I was thinking that her songs could bolster the people and give them a brief reprieve from their hard work whilst _also_ giving them more of a _reason_ to work!’   
Khint doubted the king knew how mad he sounded. Instead, he opted to try and delegate.   
‘Your Majesty, if I may be so bold. . .’ He trailed off at the expression on the king’s face. It was hard to pin down _what_ was unsettling about it. Rattled, Khint tucked his sleeves together and absent-mindedly dug at his wrists. ‘Ah, it-it’s nothing.’   
‘No, no, no. It’s not _nothing_ , Ciggma!’ The king exclaimed, voice shrill. ‘You’re clearly worried about _something_ and I’d be a terrible king if I didn’t take the worries of my employees into account!’   
_Do you not realise that_ you _are why I’m worried?  
_ ‘W-well, I was just thinking. . .’   
‘Ye-e-es? Go on!’   
Khint shuffled nervously, suddenly feeling like a rat caught in a trap.   
‘These, um. . . new hands of mine?’   
‘What about them?’ The king sounded impatient. _Not good._   
‘Well, they might not. . . Um, Miss a la Mode is in Eisenberg, you see? I was worried they might not react well to the volcanic heat of the region. Would it be possible to. . . delegate this task to someone else?’ He hated how he was stuttering like a schoolgirl, but the king was making his instincts scream at him to _run_ .   
‘A valid point, Ciggma! Why didn’t I think of that?’ The king thought for a moment. ‘I know! Why don’t you send that street urchin who follows you around so much? What was his name? Coyote? Fennec. . .?’   
‘Jackal.’ Khint supplied, internally cringing at the potential backlash.   
‘Jackal! That’s it! Yes, go send him. I’m certain he can get the job done!’   
Khint bowed his head as the king dismissed him. 

‘I have. . . important business to attend to.’ Khint said. It wasn’t necessarily a _lie_ (he _did_ have important things to do: avoiding the king as much as possible) but it did its of stopping the boy from asking too many questions. His hands hidden beneath his sleeves, he idly picked at his skin. ‘So His Majesty has asked that you retrieve Praline a la Mode, bearer of the performer’s asterisk, from Eisenberg and bring her here.’   
‘And what does she look like?’ Jackal asked, folding his arms.   
‘Blonde hair, wears a rabbit-ear headband. . . you can’t miss her. She sticks out like a sore thumb.’   
‘Oh, okay.’   
‘The king was kind enough to supply an airship to escort you to and from Eisenberg.’   
‘A whole _airship_ ?’   
Khint nodded.   
‘ _Whoa_ .’ Jackal’s awe quickly switched to a level of focus he only saw when the kid was planning a heist. ‘I need to get ready.’   
Just as the boy was leaving, Khint called out to him.   
‘Oh, and Jack?’   
‘Yeah?’ The boy wore a puzzled expression. It wasn’t often Khint referred to him as “Jack”, after all.   
‘Be careful.’ 

It was getting hard to bend his wrists. Normally it would be no issue - a quick rest or a few potions would solve most problems easily - but for whatever reason the stiffness and pain remained stubbornly in place.   
The metal joints cracked and snapped as he moved. Khint winced despite it being almost painless. That sound was _not_ good.   
He was tempted to board the nearest airship and take off to Eternia under the pretense of paying his daughter’s medical bills. The way the king was currently acting squashed that idea almost immediately; Khamer was an absolute lunatic and would likely mobilise his entire forces to get him back, loyalty to Eternia and basic logic be damned.   
He was better off here, within the king’s clutches. 

He was horrified when he awoke with bloodied sheets. He sat up and moved to inspect them, but his hands weren’t working. The digits hung limply, like a puppet with its strings cut. No amount of willpower could make them move and the thought of attempting to animate them with a Thunder spell was out of the question. The blood had dried, thankfully, leaving a crusty-brown residue along his hands, but it didn’t stop the _pain_ . He was almost certain having his arms dunked in acid or gnawed off by a crazed dog would hurt less.   
Khint swallowed the nervous lump in his throat and tried to quell the anxiety that coursed through him. It felt like he was going to vomit and cry and burst into hysterical laughter when he realised:   
_The king won’t be happy about this._

Calling the king “unhappy” was a massive understatement. He was glad he’d convinced the man that Jackal was a better candidate to fetch Praline - he didn’t want the boy nearby when things eventually exploded out of control.   
‘What did you do? What did you _DO_ ?!’ The king’s voice came out as a screech.   
Khint winced, shrinking in on himself. He was, admittedly, a bit of a coward, yet under normal circumstances the king was as frightening as a housecat. But this? This wasn’t just the king throwing a temper tantrum. The king was _furious_ , and he was going to be its recipient. Being in his workshop made things even worse; they were surrounded by potential weapons.   
‘I. . .’ Speaking when the king was so frighteningly angry wasn’t his wisest move, but it just _slipped out_ . ‘I-I don’t know.’   
‘Well you clearly did _something_ , you pathetic-!’ The king cut himself off with a snarl, picking up a wrench and hurling it at him.   
Khint darted to the side, biting back a yelp of pain as it collided with his shoulder. If he hadn’t moved, the wrench would’ve smashed his head.   
‘You-you-!’ The king was too riled up to even speak properly. His words were interrupted by wild breaths better suited to a rabid beast than an eloquent monarch. He yelled again, face twisted with madness and anger, picking up tools and tossing them at him.   
Khint didn’t dodge this time. It would only infuriate him further. He backed into a corner and ducked his head, arms and useless hands brought up to protect it, as metal and other materials battered him. If he was lucky, the king’s rage would quell soon. 

With a surprising amount of strength, the king seized Khint by the front of his robes and threw him onto the workbench. He let out a pained hiss when his hands and slowly-forming bruises were roughly disturbed. The leather straps were tied around his limbs and the king’s furious face loomed above him.   
‘I _was_ going to make this as painless as possible.’ He hissed. Khint wisely stayed silent. ‘But now? _Now_ I need to teach you a lesson, you stupid, _stupid_ man!’ 

How long had he been there, as the king cut him apart and put him back together? He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, feeling like it might burst. His arms felt like they’d been torn down to the bone - and they likely _had_ . The king made good on his threat.  
He was deliberately slow, taking care to explain in gruesome detail every wire, every bolt, every bit of metal, that he used to force his body into a shape the king desired.   
Khint couldn’t speak even if he wanted to. The Silence spell - sitting heavy in his throat, making him feel like he was suffocating - prevented him from using his magic or to cry out for help. He wondered where the king had learned Black Magic and just as quickly decided it wasn’t important as pain screamed through his nerves.   
If he was fortunate the pain would knock him out for the rest of the procedure. 

The king kept a close eye on him after the operation was done. He was barred from leaving the workshop, was delivered food and water by the crazed monarch as his aching body adjusted to the foreign limbs, and was all but forced into arranging the tools the king had thrown about in his fit of fury.   
Metal met flesh roughly halfway up his lower arms. He could _see_ the mechanisms moving, hear the gears ticking as they mimicked what was once muscle and tendon. He wanted to rip them out, dig into the metal and destroy what the king had done to him. 

The king asked how his new hands were. _Are the fingers moving properly? Have the wrists stopped that grinding noise? Can you bend your hand like you could before?  
_ Khint, his voice failing him, merely nodded.   
The king was satisfied with that.   
After a few weeks, he let him go. Quietly ushered him back amongst the populace as though nothing was wrong. Gave him the order to guard Profiteur’s empty business. Reminded him about his new limbs.   
‘And _don’t_ break them!’ The _or else_ remained unsaid.   
_I won’t_. 


End file.
